


Whose Is that Face in the Mask?

by mltrefry



Category: Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, What-If, face reveal goes different
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-20 20:53:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30010770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mltrefry/pseuds/mltrefry
Summary: Christine reveals what's beneath the porcelain.
Relationships: Christine Daaé/Erik | Phantom of the Opera
Comments: 10
Kudos: 32





	Whose Is that Face in the Mask?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Phantomstardemon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phantomstardemon/gifts).



> Once upon a time, Phantomstademon asked me if I had written any Phantom of the Opera fic. I hadn't, but this idea has always been sorta just there inside my mind (ha!, couldn't resist). So, to round out my turning thirty-five posting spree of one-shots, I wanted to gift this to her. Maybe after I finish my other WIP I'll return to it and expand it if the muse strikes!

Christine awoke, groggy, eyes aching from not having her makeup removed properly before falling asleep.

The strange thing was, she hadn’t recalled going to bed. 

She seemed to be in a cave, though at least not a damp one. It didn’t smell as she thought it would - musty and earthy - but instead of frankincense and candle wax. Rising out of the strange, swan-shaped bed, Christine headed for the opening, following the gentle sound of water lapping against stone.

The lake, she recalled, just a tiny bit fogged as the air around it was warmer than what she was sure the water was. Which, given the vast amount of candles all let, made sense. They made sure that there were as few dark shadows as possible, giving warmth to a place where it should not exist. And, strangely, elegance. The candelabras that held them all were beautifully crafted, evident even with the accumulation of wax from candles gone by.

She could remember them as she arrived here on a boat. She remembered….

A man.

Masked, calling to her from beyond her dressing room mirror, her mysterious angel of music. Many believed her naive that when she referred to him as an angel, she genuinely believed that’s what he was. But despite her faith, despite the words her father had said to her before he died, she didn’t think an actual angel would descend from heaven simply to teach her to sing. 

No, she believed that her father had sent an angel in the form of a man, someone who remained in the shadows for fear of being seen with the small orphan girl. Or, perhaps someone who hadn’t wanted Christine to cling to him in her younger days. Who didn’t want to be a replacement for her father and so kept himself separate.

But the angel had meant so much to her, and there he was now, sitting at an organ in a cave below the opera house. He played something beautiful, enchanting, and yet unfamiliar. The side of his face that was facing her was covered in that white porcelain.

Christine realized she hadn’t recognized the man when she followed him through the mirror and into the depths of the sewers. She always thought that once she’d seen his face, she would know him in an instant.

A part of her had even wondered since he arrived only after Raoul had left if perhaps they were the same. Silly, really, as the voice had always been a man, and Raoul had just become the patron the day before.

She had to admit she was relieved.

Her angel was strict. Raoul was something else.

Moving slowly down the stone stairs, she was sure the man at the organ had known she was there. Somehow Christine was sure he had seen her moving about, that she couldn’t have hidden from him.

She made her way over, looking him over. 

Did she know this thin man? Had she seen him somewhere in the rafters? Painting scenes? Was he in the orchestra every night, and she had missed him somehow?

Once she was near, she cradled his cheek in her hand, surprised to feel him lean into the touch. His skin felt strange, like paper, and she could feel the bones that made up his face so easily.

His eyes had fallen closed, those wonderfully hypnotic eyes so strange a color. He trusted her, turning so his mask faced her. 

Taking it as a sign, Christine removed it.

In the few split seconds before he tossed her away, allowing her to fall roughly to the floor, Christine saw what had been beneath.

It was as though there was no skin at all, though there must have been. He was missing the flesh around that side of his mouth, or it was pulled back too far and thus bared his teeth. He was missing his nose entirely, the mask having created one for him. Around his eye was so much more sunken in than Christine realized, another reminder of how thin his skin was and how little flesh seemed to be beneath it.

The man covered the corpse-like side of his face with his hand as he cursed her.

Christine curled up in a ball protectively, fearing what his rage would bring her as he began to rip things down and shove things over.

But just as quickly as he started shouting and acting out, he began to quiet and come to a standstill.

“You couldn’t resist, could you?” He asked, finally comprehensible. “You had to see the monster behind the mask, the loathsome gargoyle. The beast.” He turned toward her then, hand still covering his face. “Is it stranger than you expected?”

“Yes,” She answered honestly, her voice only quivering slightly.

“A walking carcass, could you imagine it? Your angel of music no angel but a devil? Rotting in a living hell? Do you fear me? Can you look at me, I wonder?”

He dropped his hand and stared at her.

Christine took him in, the details of his face both beautiful and horrific. Her heart was still racing as it had from the moment he had begun to lash out, but it was slowing down now that he seemed calm.

Slowly, she got to her feet, shaking like the proverbial leaf. Slowly, she moved to where he was standing, holding his gaze, trying to concentrate on the grotesque side of his face.

It startled her heart, sending a spike of fear rushing through her veins. But he was a man, just a man. He had leaned into her palm when she touched his cheek. He had been the only one who attempted to calm and soothe her when she was alone after her father’s death. He told her stories and taught her how to make her voice its best.

How could she be afraid of the man who gave her so much? Who she had grown to love by voice alone?

He seemed apprehensive as she stopped before him and flinched when she lifted her hand toward his gruesome side. Christine paused, ensured he was still looking at her as she slowly resumed her reach, touching the mangled, barely-there skin.

“I don’t, and I can,” She said as she ran her thumb gently under his eye.

She could see his lip quivering, and his eyes were beginning to glisten.

“You don’t,” he repeated, his voice broken.

She shook her head. 

He broke out into a sob.

“Oh, Christine,” he said as he collapsed against her shoulder, his arms dangling at his sides. 

She hesitated, but after only a second, Christine took her angel in her arms and lightly held him as he wept.

“What kind of life have you known?” She asked herself more than him, though she was sure he had heard her. “To weep like this over a simple gesture.”

“It’s not simple,” He managed to say. Lifting his head, he looked at her again. 

The tears made him so much more gruesome and yet infinitely more heartbreaking. 

“It’s not simple at all, Christine. This face… not even my mother could love me because of this face. I’ve worn a mask for as long as I can remember. I have been beaten and nearly killed over and over. And even those who would show me a scrap of kindness could not bear to look at me without turning away in fear and revulsion. You look at me, Christine, you look at me, and you say you don’t fear me. Even though you’re heart is pounding, you say you don’t fear me, and I … I believe you.”

She gave him a tentative smile, and he attempted one as well. 

After a long beat in which they stared at each other, her angel sniffed, then turned away, moving toward the organ once more.

“What were you playing?” She asked as he sat down at the bench once more. 

He stretched his hands, hovering them over the keyboard. “I was playing a piece I’ve been writing. For an opera.”

“Oh,” Christine’s eyes widened. “Not something for me to sing, then?”

“Perhaps,” He replied. He still didn’t move, merely hovered his hands.

Wondering if perhaps, despite everything, he still couldn’t bear to have his face in view, Christine delicately placed the porcelain mask on the bench beside him.

Her angel snapped it up and put it in place, smoothing back his hair which moved a bit over his scalp. A wig, then. Perhaps the deformity went far higher than she would have thought.

Once he seemed to be put back together, his fingers touched the keys once more. A new song seemed to spring from them, though it was still not one Christine knew. It was beautiful nonetheless, much more enchanting than the one he had been playing when she woke. That one she would have said sounded like something dark and tempting, doing something one knows they shouldn’t brought to life in melody. This one, however, sounded light, hopeful. Like bright sun after weeks of rain, the break of a fever, and the promise of better health. 

No, that wasn’t it. It was, but it was so much more. The feeling one gets in the heart when it has that first spark of joy, that brilliant thrill of something wondrous.

“Another one?” She asked.

“No,” he shook his head. “This one is new. I hear the music, Christine. All the time, so many songs in my head. I play them over and over until my fingers know them as well until I can write them on paper with as much ease as one signs their own name.”

“What is your name?” She dared to ask.

“I am the Opera Ghost. OG,” He replied with ease.

She giggled, “No. What is your real name?”

He played without saying anything, the tempo going faster. 

“Erik,” He said, quiet and uncertain. 

“Erik,” Christine repeated. 

She stood at his side, listening to him play. It could have been minutes or hours, but eventually, he stopped, then turned to her.

“The fools that run my opera house will be missing you. We must return.”


End file.
